Is the Tank Man is still alive? According to a report yesterday from Hong Kong-based newspaper Apple Daily, the young Chinese man who single-handedly blocked a long column of the Chinese military’s tanks on Chang’an Avenue during the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 is still in prison. His real name is Zhang Weimin, and he was imprisoned twice after the Tiananmen Massacre. For years, the Tank Man’s whereabouts remained a mystery. Citizen Power, a.k.a. Initiatives for China (CP/IFC) is highly concerned about this new clue. The Tank Man’s photo, one of the most influential images of all time, inscribed his heroic act into history. The image continues to stand as a symbol for one individual’s defiance of state violence. For twenty-eight years, the whole world has been asking where the Tank Man is, but there have never been any reliable clues – he has never been...

After three years of work, TIME has released its 100 most influential images of all time, a collection curated by international historians, photo editors, photographers, and reporters from around the world. Initiatives for China (a.k.a. Citizen Power for China) is pleased that The Tank Man image from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests was selected as one of the 100. We applaud TIME’s effort and celebrate the selection of the Tank Man image, which once again confirms the historic value and significance of this iconic and powerful photograph. TIME’s selection criteria was based on whether the images’ influence can be quantified by examining how specific photographs drive and change the course of history. Indeed the Tank Man image has become not only a symbol of the 1989 Beijing pro-democracy protest, but also a symbol of nonviolent resistance against oppression worldwide,...

On June 4th, 2016, Students for a Free Tibet held a rally in Dharamsala, India, to commemorating the 27th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square. They organized this event to show the solidarty with the victims of the massacre and raise awareness about the ongoing crackdown on the democracy activists in China....

Statement by Initiatives for China on Nomination of the Tank Man Images and Video Footage for the UNESCO Memory of the World Register June 1, 2016 Initiatives for China is pleased to announce that along with the Newseum and world-renowned photographer Charlie Cole, it has nominated the Tank Man images and video footage captured by international journalists during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing as documentary heritage for inscription into UNESCO Memory of the World (MoW) Register. The nomination submitted on the eve of the 27th anniversary of the early-morning June 4 massacre serves as an appropriate commemoration of the hundreds, even thousands of victims. The nomination includes the selected images and video footage from five photojournalists and two cameramen who risked their lives to record the heroic act of the “Tank Man”, a still-unidentified young Chinese man,...

Press Release Our Response to Trump and Kasich’s Remarks about the Tiananmen Massacre Chinese version: www.yibaochina.com/FileView.aspx?FileIdq=6570 March 11, 2016 We are appalled by Donald Trump’s remarks about the Chinese government’s 1989 massacre during the 12th Republican presidential candidate debate last Thursday, in which he called the heroic pro-democracy protest in Beijing a “riot”, and praised the Chinese government’s response as “strong.” Trump’s comments show not only a lack of moral orientation, but also show a complete disregard for the hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives lost when the Chinese government butchered unarmed students and citizens in Tiananmen Square on June 3-4, 1989. Many of us participated in that peaceful demonstration, and we know that we were merely exercising our basic rights to protest and our rights for free speech. We petitioned the government to curtail the rampant corruption and...

According to foreign media reports, VISUAL CHINA, a company with Chinese government ties, recently acquired Corbis, a photograph and video footage licensing company founded by Bill Gates. Visual China has bought the copyrights of nearly 50 million original photographs, including a large number of photos taken on the site of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and the well-known photo of “Wang Weilin Blocking the Tank”. This development has caused great concern in China and across the world, with people worrying that this move is likely to lead to many Tiananmen massacre photos being sealed or destroyed. Clearly, the CCP’s dollar politics has penetrated from diplomacy into commercial arenas. They are trying to cover up the evidence of their crimes through legitimate commercial means. On December 10, 2015, the fifth anniversary of Liu Xiaobo’s winning of the Nobel peace prize,...

Please Sign on the Petition to Seek Truth About the Two Tiananmen Tank Men The iconic image on Beijing’s Chang’an Street bravely confronting PLA tanks is one of the most important photographs of the twentieth century. It represents ordinary citizens confronting the State violence, and it is not forgotten by history. Over more than two decades, the whole world has been asking: Where is the tank man? As of today, the background of the tank man “Wang Weilin,” and his subsequent fate are still unknown to the world. At the same time, we should not forget that, despite the CCP’s massacre order, the soldier in the tank chose not to shoot or run over his compatriot. The most logical explanation is that his conscience made him disobey the order. This soldier is equally a hero. As Time magazine pointed...